Thank You Iowa & Trump…
“You could feel it then,” she told me, “and you can feel that fear now” — chiefly among Senate Republicans.
For three years, we’ve been preparing for this process that officially kicks off tonight in Iowa: the Democratic presidential primary. Today our chair, @TomPerez, reflects on the reforms we’ve made to make this the most transparent primary in our history.
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By JM Hamilton (2-8-2020)
What a week… when historians write of the last seven days, they might say this was the week where the structural defects – and codified corruption – finally caught up with American democracy. The monied class’ grip on power is so great, and their desire to control their personal piggy bank – the US government – so fanatical, & obsessive, that the plutocrats are willing to burn up any pretense of democracy or the republic.
Oligarchy reigns, which means feudalism has returned. Doubt my word? Take a look at the national debt --- used to bailout Wall Street banks & insurance companies; utilized to prop up asset classes for an elite cadre, see the stock market; and to pay for endless war –-- to which all Americans, but for the privileged few, are indentured.
To kick off this very strange week, we had a Super Bowl. Like many Americans, I still enjoy the sport on rare occasion and once played… but the game has become insane. Men wearing spandex – jacked up on whatever substance the League will allow – crashing into each other at the speed of light – decked out in flashy colors – legalized public maiming - preening like peacocks. The annual bowl game now has all the allure of a wake. The spectacle that is the Super Bowl reminds us that history repeats again and again: bread, circuses, and gladiatorial combat to keep the public entertained, while Caesar loots the treasury and bankrupts the country further (so as to keep the epitome of hubris, the empire, maintained).
And speaking of ancient Rome, Caesar would have the loved the treatment our own monarch received from the US senate this week. Apparently, whatever Trump does – in the furtherance of his political career – is all legal and kosher, per the POTUS’ legal team. And this obscenity is perfectly acceptable to the republican bootlickers w/in the US senate.
Yes, this week we saw the senate exactly for what it is: an old folks’ home with senators more interested in maintaining power, and their government sinecure, than in preserving democracy and protecting the republic from a dangerous demagogue.
Unlike the events surrounding Nixon’s resignation, this time: there would be no republican senators placing the nation & principle before political party & the president (save one); there would be no one of Barry Goldwater’s stature visiting Trump and telling him that he must step down, so as to avoid a conviction in the Senate; and finally, there’d be no POTUS Pence telling Americans that our long national nightmare was over. (A president Pence would only add to the nightmare.)
In short, in the span of two generations, we have witnessed the demoralizing collapse of the US Senate as an institutional check against Caligula.
Nor is the Grand Old Party alone. The Democratic party had its own moment of insanity during the Iowa caucus this week, where either its own special brand of corruption or incompetence, or both, was on full display.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) – still controlled by failed centrist leaders (see the Clintons, Obama and the donor class) – also has an issue w/ surrendering power. Besides - given the list of Clinton Foundation donors and HRC’ subsequent loss in 2016 – payback is owed to wealthy Dems & foreign governments. And, like the GOP, the billionaire and multinational class - that owns the political duopoly - is not in any hurry to surrender power to two progressive candidates: Sanders and Warren.
As it stands, both parties are owned, and the establishment likes it that way. That is to say, if the Business Round Table, or members of the US Chamber, own both political parties, then they always win.
And We The People always lose.
Iowa was a reminder to the public that this DNC is just as incompetent, and filled with self-interest, as the republicans within the US senate. Both parties detest populism (unless it can be turned against the public, a la Trump), and they really hate progressives. And these bastards - the billionaire/multinational class - are not likely to go gently into that good night. Hence, the "plutocrats only" optics of Mr. Bloomberg gaining immediate access to the Dem party, after a couple of well-placed donations; and hence, Mayor – Billionaire – Pete Buttigieg’s dramatic and mysterious rise in the polls and the final Iowa outcome (after days passed, post -caucus, before Iowa’s democratic leadership could pull together results).
Moreover, while JMH is not willing to concede immoral equivalence between the two political parties, there’s not a whole lot of daylight between the two when it comes to kowtowing to corporate, multinational, or plutocratic interests. And while, to their credit, the Dems in the House have passed a considerable amount of legislation that is favorable to the public… they did so, perhaps cynically, knowing full well that it would never be passed in the Senate. (The next time a Dem enters the White House – hopefully, in January of 2021 – the majority of Americans are going to want to see executive order after executive order reversing Trump’s tyranny. Many Americans are going to want to see the courts stacked to the rafters with progressive jurists; and the majority of Americans – who have suffered austerity for decades - are going to want to see the end of the US empire that has bankrupted the United States.)
Isn’t it amazing how the oligarchs always maintain their grip on the US government? At least ninety percent of the population is divided – and at each other’s throats – meanwhile profits and tax laws favorable to the privileged few remain untouched. Separately, the courts are being stacked with right-wing politicians, who will definitely do what congress fails to do daily, and that is legislate and make laws from the bench.
Iowa and the US senate are just another in a long series of very unpleasant reminders of how corrupt and deconstructed American democracy has become. And all that appears before us is often not what it seems, but rather, a sideshow – like so many Super Bowls – while the elite continue to loot, pillage, and sack the US government for personal gain.
We, dear citizens, are something that does not matter to our own government, but rather, we are a demographic that must be continually distracted and entertained, so the real criminals – the plutocratic elite – can continue to get away with murder.
There are real solutions to the problems the US, and other Western democracies, face, but the current ownership has a vested interest in quid pro quos and the status quo.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020
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